The Fifth Annual International Blue Beanie Day in support of web standards will be celebrated Wednesday, November 30, 2011.

Take a self-portrait wearing a blue beanie (toque, tuque, cap) and upload it right here to the Blue Beanie Day 2011 pool on Flickr.

====

Today, 30 November 2011, is the Fifth Annual international Blue Beanie Day in support of web standards.

Standards keep the web from fragmenting into tiny fiefdoms best viewed with a particular browser or plug-in only. Web standards keep our content portable and accessible across platforms, devices, and operating systems. Each November 30, we celebrate. You wonderful people can help spread the word.

4.) Use your social networks to wish your friends and followers a Happy Blue Beanie Day! Link to www.zeldman.com/bbd/ if you like (it explains Blue Beanie Day and offers simple participation instructions).

Sunday, November 27, 2011

Each year the Mashable Awards honors the best in digital media, companies and personalities. This year, we have 196 nominees across 4 majors categories up for 28 total awards. As always, you, our readers get to choose the winners. The Mashable Awards will be decided over the next few weeks by popular user vote.

I've got a problem with this. Where are the regular people?

I'm not a big fan of award shows, unless I win one. ;-)

The Mashable Awards are just a popularity contest.

I don't want to vote for Famous People in Social Media.

I want to vote for people that I know: Regular people.

Why can't they be nominees too?

Well, they can.

I made my own award.

The 2011 NOT Mashable Awards Nominees for REGULAR PEOPLE.

Survey Monkey required me to add a choice, so I added some REGULAR PEOPLE who I follow and who recently showed up on my twitter stream.

Note: This is a BASIC Survey Monkey Plan that allows for 100 votes. I'll probably end it there and share the results, otherwise I'll share the results on December 17th. You've got one vote. Don't get me started on the 'come back every day to vote' thing. Oh my.

Sharing Results with Survey Monkey is a Pro Feature.
"PRO FEATURE: You can share the results of your survey with others, without giving them access to your account. To share your responses, upgrade to a professional subscription."

Fredrik Nilsson, North American general manager for the Chelmsford, Massachusetts based Axis Communications, a major maker of surveillance cameras, joined NECN to talk about protecting against flash robs.

As soon as I saw his camera on the interview I said, that's the same camera as the DropCam.

Very cool. I've tried an evaluation DropCam unit and it works great. It allowed me to watch my home during a hurricane while I was in Paris.

Great news everyone. President Obama didn't mention God in his Thanksgiving greeting.

Video: President Obama’s Thanksgiving Greeting

Text of President Obama’s Thanksgiving greeting
From my family to yours, I’d like to wish you a happy Thanksgiving. Like millions of Americans, Michelle, Malia, Sasha and I will spend the day eating great food, watching a little football, and reflecting on how truly lucky we truly are.

As Americans, each of us has our own list of things and people to be thankful for. But there are some blessings we all share.

We’re especially grateful for the men and women who defend our country overseas. To all the service members eating Thanksgiving dinner far from your families: the American people are thinking of you today. And when you come home, we intend to make sure that we serve you as well as you’re serving America.

We’re also grateful for the Americans who are taking time out of their holiday to serve in soup kitchens and shelters, making sure their neighbors have a hot meal and a place to stay. This sense of mutual responsibility – the idea that I am my brother’s keeper; that I am my sister’s keeper – has always been a part of what makes our country special. And it’s one of the reasons the Thanksgiving tradition has endured.

The very first Thanksgiving was a celebration of community during a time of great hardship, and we have followed that example ever since. Even when the fate of our union was far from certain – during a Civil War, two World Wars, a Great Depression – Americans drew strength from each other. They had faith that tomorrow would be better than today.

We’re grateful that they did. As we gather around the table, we pause to remember the pilgrims, pioneers, and patriots who helped make this country what it is. They faced impossible odds, and yet somehow, they persevered. Today, it’s our turn.

I know that for many of you, this Thanksgiving is more difficult than most. But no matter how tough things are right now, we still give thanks for that most American of blessings, the chance to determine our own destiny. The problems we face didn’t develop overnight, and we won’t solve them overnight. But we will solve them. All it takes is for each of us to do our part.

With all the partisanship and gridlock here in Washington, it’s easy to wonder if such unity is really possible. But think about what’s happening at this very moment: Americans from all walks of life are coming together as one people, grateful for the blessings of family, community, and country.

If we keep that spirit alive, if we support each other, and look out for each other, and remember that we’re all in this together, then I know that we too will overcome the challenges of our time.

So today, I’m thankful to serve as your President and Commander-and-Chief. I’m thankful that my daughters get to grow up in this great country of ours. And I’m thankful for the chance to do my part, as together, we make tomorrow better than today.

Friday, November 25, 2011

Back when blog rolls, in your blog's side bar, was a thing. I kept mine up to date with lots of interesting sites.

Now, I don't even use a blog feed reader. The interesting posts from my friends pop up in my social media stream.

Recently I came across an old blogging friend from England, Bloggerheads. He used to be on my sidebar. This prompted me to look at my blog's HTML code to look at who else I used to follow. I'd commented out the blogroll years ago. Keep in mind, I started this blog 11 hers ago in November of 2000.

Hey. November 30, 2011 is my 11 year Blogger blog anniversary! Here's my first month of blogging. BTW, lots of my images from the past 10 years are going to go away when Apple discontinues iDisk support. Not sure what I'm going to do about that.

I started blogging by hand back in 1997. ;-)

Here's the blog roll. Let's go through it together and see if we can find any gems still maintaining their sites. Leave a comment if you find something you like.

He’s never gotten the credit he deserves for bringing the economy he inherited back from the brink of a depression.

He’s fought the war on terrorism in a smart and effective way.

He’s making health care possible for millions of Americans with pre-existing conditions, and he saved the auto industry.

This is big stuff.

But, as important as all of these achievements are, they pale in comparison to the defining challenge of Obama’s presidency: Can he put the country on a sustainable economic recovery path at a time when, if we fail, it could be the end of the American dream?

Using his Samsung Galaxy S2 cell phone, a 4G network, a free Ustream account, and Twitter and Facebook to alert viewers to new broadcasts, the 25-year-old Pool is demonstrating what could be the future of broadcast, networked citizen journalism, where interaction with viewers is real-time, and where anything can happen.

To long-time video-blogging pioneers, Pool’s livestreams from the Occupy Wall Street protests in Manhattan prove that the long-held promise of video-blogging has come of age.

I'm spending Saturday morning at Vloggercon 2005--the first ever face-to-face gathering of videobloggers--in a packed conference room at NYU. There are over 50 people here, including two women from Italy, a guy from Norway and one from Chile, all who came to NY just for this event. There's a sense here of being part of the birth of a new medium, one that has all kinds of interesting potential.

So I asked twitter followers to give me clout in photography to see if that would make a difference.

--
Please +K my influence in Photography on @klout http://t.co/rT3eodKE Sorry for this but here's the official way to add to my influence.
--
It did.

Thanks.

--

Update:
It totally worked...

Thanks again!

--Influencer disclosure
I was given a free product or sample because I'm a Klout influencer. I was under no obligation to receive the sample or talk about this company. I get no additional benefits for talking about the product or company.
--

Subscribe

Ad

Pages

About Me

Steve is a Social Media Traveler. Companies, brands, and destinations send my wife and I on trips in hopes that we will publicly share our experiences via social media. Examples include opening festivities for the Hermitage Club and traveling with GMC to the Super Bowl. (Go Pats!) We are available for more branded experience trips.